Don't Breathe a Word

When the worst happens and you still survive, it sets you free from fear.

At home, they'd clipped my wings and then caged me so I couldn't fall. Here, they bandaged one another's broken wings, helped each other fly.

ASHES. He had reduced me to ashes. And now I would rise.

We're all family--the only family we've got. It doesn't have to be blood.

Under the bridge, traffic above us and coats around us, hearts thudding with the steady perfection of this moment, I thought of every word I had never before dared to think about him. Future. Hope. And love, as the rain slowed to a misty trickle through the long and beautiful night.

Maybe that's why he watched over all of us--because of the ones he couldn't protect, he took care of the ones he could.